


Here With You

by Ebhenah



Series: Games of Shance Stories [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Changeling!Shiro, Chronic Pain, Fae!Lance, Games of Shance Discord Server March week 2 challenge Team Shiro, Gay Shiro (Voltron), M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, War mentioned, serious injury mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 10:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18119144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ebhenah/pseuds/Ebhenah
Summary: Written for the March Week 2 Shance Games challenge. Team Shiro. Prompts "Music" and "Herb"Lance, a displaced Fae Noble, and Shiro, a Changeling, live in a human world that is recovering from a war with the Fey Realm and forge a life together after losing much. Shiro lives with chronic pain and struggles with feeling like a burden. Lance is forever separated from the only home and loved ones he'd ever known before meeting Shiro. It's challenging at times, but they make it work.





	Here With You

Shiro tried to muster up a smile when Lance came through the door after his shift, keys dangling from his fingers, arms filled with a paper bag full of groceries and earbuds firmly in place- Even though he knew it worried Shiro that he wouldn’t be able to hear someone coming up on him. Even though he’d promised not to do that anymore. Even though they lived in a TERRIBLE neighborhood. Even though there was no way to look at Lance and NOT know what he was, and anti-magic sentiment was at an all time high.

“Ah ah ah,” Lance chided him, tugging one ear bud out, “don’t give me that look! I turned my music on AFTER I got through the security doors. You know I can’t break a promise…”

“Right, right,” he shook his head, trying to clear away the fogginess. “Forsworn, I knew that. I’m sorry… it’s just…”

Lance’s expressive face drew in on itself in worry and he set the groceries aside, crossing to the battered old love seat in a rush of graceful movement that still didn’t seem possible. He trilled something in that old, old language that sounded like birdsong and came to rest on the edge of the cushion, his slender frame taking up hardly any room at all. Long, thin fingers reached out to brush the stark white forelock from Shiro’s forehead, “the pain is bad yes? And your human aids are not working? I can fix this.”

“Lance,” he sighed, “no. It’s too dangerous. I can deal with this.”

“Did I or did I not swear that you were under my care and protection before Reine Allura and her court?” Lance asked him, picking up the pill bottle and eyeing it suspiciously.

He sighed, “you did.” It had all been very dramatic, and Shiro was sure his memory of the romantic gesture would be seared into his brain with much more clarity had he not been lying on the amethyst floor fighting iron poisoning when it had all happened. L'anse De La Garde De La Reine was his official title, The Handle of Guard of The Queen. Somehow that meant a non-Royal Prince. Shiro couldn’t claim to understand how the world of Fey worked. All he knew was that the Queen had bequeathed him that title before humans forgot that magic existed. For so long, he’d kept his true name a closely guarded secret. He’d entrusted it to Shiro when he’d told him he loved him. When he’d given up everything and parted ways with his foster sister and the court that had been his home for millennia to share his life with a half human. Lance, he’d called himself after he’d passed through the veils that shrouded everything he’d ever known from this world. 

“And so, I take care of you, yes?” He cocked his head to one side, blinking owlishly, those blue eyes showing the steely will that was so easily hidden by his high energy and brightly talkative personality.

“Yes,” Shiro said, shifting on the love-seat, “fine. I get it.”

He smiled then and Shiro felt his heart skip a beat, because… truly, there was nothing more beautiful than a happy Fae… unless it was the happy Fae you were in love with. Lance’s eyes glowed from within, the little blue marks gifted to him by Reine Allura as a final gesture of affection before they parted sparkled gently. His skin seemed to glitter- tiny silvery flecks of light barely bursting through his skin, the Fae equivalent of freckles. His smile was broad and bright, the pearly teeth just a little too sharp, a little too forward to be human. Likewise, his hair was a little too soft, had strands of colors that shouldn’t exist- glimmering pearly pink, and sparkling blue, and black so dark it seemed like a void, and his ears were too narrow, too long, curving up to a graceful point and filled with delicate silver piercings. Shiro could almost convince himself that he saw the wings that had first caught his attention- blue and red swirled together, gossamer galaxies that swept up and back like he carried the night sky behind him. The pain meds made it easy to pretend that they were there, let his mind fill in the space where they should be with his memories of their beauty. But no. In this world, Lance didn’t have wings. In this world, Lance was wearing black jeans, and a bright blue tank top. His shimmering skin was etched with black tattooed lines, tracing over the blue woad markings that had provided magical protection, making those spells weaker, but permanent, since he could no longer redo them. He wore thick silver bracelets that were reminiscent of the bracers that had marked his esteem and station at Court and a delicate chain around his neck that had a moonstone pendant adorning it. Every bit as beautiful as he had been draped in armor and silks and surrounded by La Belle Hôte, but more ‘human’, and decidedly more touchable.

L’anse had never needed to use magic to entice him. Shiro had been fascinated by him ever since the first time they’d crossed paths. Shiro had been new to that world. Having been thought to be without magic when he was born, he’d been left with his human father. It wasn’t until he reached adulthood that the odd things started happening around him. It started small, flowers turning their blossoms to him like he was the sun; just a little bit too much luck to be coincidence; his flirting just a tad too effective; his emotions just a little too volatile; his sense of time just a little off. The golden boy. Everything went his way.

Until it didn’t. Because uncontrolled magic tends to snap back and when it does, bad things happen. Bad things like the loss of his fiance after an argument. Bad things like a sharp decline in his health. Bad things like his sudden, severe iron allergy. Bad things like the rift he’d accidentally torn between his father’s world and his mother’s. The rift that had caused a war.

He’d been pulled into Le Rêve almost immediately, caught up in a whirlwind of training and testing and heated debates. Suddenly, the woman he’d been told had died at his birth was standing in front of him tall and fearsome and regal and very, very, real, but also very, very NOT human. Sluagh. Thought by humans to be spirits of the restless dead, his mother’s people were something else altogether. Warriors, strong and stealthy, with the ability to melt into the smallest sliver of shadow and travel from one dark place to another. Pale skin, black hair, grey eyes… Shiro could look at her and see himself in certain quirks of her features, certain movements. She would gaze at him sometimes, tracing out his features with dainty fingers that were always soothingly cool and speaking to him in that unnerving voice of hers- like a slippery whisper- of her time with his father in Japan and how hard it had been for her to leave her ‘little changeling’ in the human world. 

It had been wonderful and terrifying. He’d fluctuated between feeling stronger than he’d ever been and deathly ill- the two sides of his heritage churning within him. When he was strong, he did well in combat training and enjoyed the physicality of it. When he was… not… he spent his time by a reflecting pool near his mother’s quarters, watching the water and losing himself in thought. That’s where he had first, unknowingly met the Queen’s favorite of all her Foster siblings- Fae that had been sent to serve with and beside her from all the realms of Fey. L’anse had seen him by himself and decided to keep him company. He’d been fascinated by Shiro’s stories of growing up among humans and in turn regaled him with his favorite parts of life in Allura’s court. It had become a daily habit. Shiro had no idea how highly ranked and powerful his new companion was.

When the illness was at its worst, Shiro would manage to drag himself out to the pool and L’anse would rest his head in his lap and sing to him in a language Shiro didn’t understand and couldn’t replicate, long, elegant fingers slipping through his hair. He’d sing for what felt like hours, lulling Shiro with the sweet sound of his voice. He hadn’t known it then, but there was a reason the song was so peaceful, so soothing. The Fae were, as a rule, guarded and secretive, manipulative and conniving- their courts were glittering and impossibly beautiful, but also cutthroat and steeped in intrigue. It was an exciting and dangerous world in its own way, just as modern Tokyo or New York or Paris could be beautiful and dangerous all at once. But when they sang… that was different. When full-blooded Fae sang they could not disguise the emotions they felt. When they lifted their voices in song they revealed their hearts, and the hearts of Fae hold powerful magic.

So, L’anse sang, and Shiro felt better, stronger, lighter, warm and safe and rested. He regained his strength faster, and when he was strong, they often took long, meandering walks through the grounds of the court. L’anse tried to teach him the courtly language and laughed good naturedly at his fumbling, awkward attempts to replicate sounds that no human could manage. Sometimes, when he was well, they would find their way to the training grounds and spar. 

Time was strange on the other side of the veils- elastic and malleable. It was almost impossible to track. There would be parties that felt like they lasted for years, and long journeys that felt nearly instantaneous. No one could explain it, they all thought it so strange that he even wanted it explained. So, falling in love with L’anse was the same way. It felt like it took centuries and happened in a blink. When they’d kiss it felt like time stopped completely. When they snuck off to secluded corners or deserted parts of the castle to lose themselves in each other’s arms it felt like years passed in the span of a sigh.

Sometimes, the falling in love part felt like a dream, and other times, like now, when he was fighting through a bad pain day and cotton-mouthed from taking the maximum dose of the narcotics his doctor prescribed, it felt like the only real thing that had ever happened to him. Because fall in love they had, and when the heated debates and machinations that had been going on ABOUT him without his knowledge had come to a head and he’d been deemed wholly responsible for the rift that caused the war, and the humans remembering that Fae were real and magic existed, it had been L'anse De La Garde De La Reine, not his mother, a lowly Sluagh, that had stepped up, lifted his voice in song and saved him. When the verdict had come down and Shiro had been shot in the arm with an iron-tipped arrow, dropping to the amethyst floor in agony, L’anse had pleaded with Reine Allura on his behalf, begging for leniency, cashing in every bit of political currency he’d accrued in his long, long life, all in music, all in beautiful birdsong that Shiro could barely understand. He’d offered everything, EVERYTHING, in exchange for Shiro’s life. 

And they’d accepted it.

He’d sworn Shiro to his care and protection- meaning an action against Shiro was an action against the Queen’s beloved favorite. Shiro’s death by violence would take L’anse’s life as well. Reine Allura was not a cruel ruler, she could be harsh when betrayed, but her heart was kind and she gave them her blessing when she called off the execution. By then, the damage to his arm was too extensive. It couldn’t be saved. Before they crossed the veils, his mother found them, carrying the few belongings she could gather for them to take to the human world with them. L’anse had sung to him again, lulling him into placid dreaming. When the song broke with a choked cry and hot tears falling from L’anse’s beautiful blue eyes, Shiro had woken to the soothingly cool touch of his mother’s fingers brushing over his forehead, and the twisted, poisoned limb was gone. L’anse had gathered him in his arms and carried him through the veils with a strength that belied his slender frame. Once his feet touched earthly soil, the galaxies of his wings flickered and blinked out of existence- too magical to survive in the mundane world.

The war had ended. The rift had been sealed. But things were different now. Humans remembered again, they remembered magic and the creatures that wielded it, and the old fear was back. They were not the only changelings and Fae that had been on this side of the veils when the dust settled, and things were anything but safe for any of them. Shiro had to be careful about iron exposure. Lance was supposed to be more cautious about keeping a low profile, but his nature was his nature and it was hard to break habits thousands of years in the making. 

They lived in a small apartment in a war-battered area of the city that was especially well suited to them, because magic lingered in the damage to the walls and roads. It leaked into the soil and grew in the plants. Lance had a garden on the roof that had been scorched by magical fire. The food he grew there sustained them better than anything they could find at a market. 

“I dislike these human tools for pain, my love,” Lance muttered, shaking the bottle again and setting the pills rattling, the formal phrasing and cadence betraying his worry, “they dim your light… and they do not even provide adequate relief!”

“They help,” he said gently, “really. Most days they are enough.”

“Today is not ‘most days’,” he sighed, pulling out his phone and tapping in a number, “uhhh hi! Yeah, I wanna order a pizza for delivery?” How different he sounded, all trace of formality vanishing in an instant, even the pitch of his voice changing, modern phrasings and tempos replacing courtly ones. “Yeah, I want pepperoni, mushrooms, and hmm… let’s go with sun-dried tomatoes. Can I request a delivery guy? Yeah, we love _Herb._ He’s our favorite- _such a helpful guy._ ”

Shiro let his eyes drift shut as Lance rattled off their address. There was a thriving black market for things that had managed to cross the veils. Lance, somehow had managed to get a very thorough understanding of it and knew exactly who to call and what to ask for to get anything he decided they needed. Shiro had no idea how he did it, other than the fact that people just… liked Lance and trusted him. THAT he kind of understood- Lance had a big heart and it shone through, making people want to help him. 

He listened to Lance putter around in the kitchen, humming to himself. He recognized the snip of the the bone-bladed scissors as Lance picked through the little pots of herbs that filled one entire wall of their shitty little kitchenette. He knew the sound of the pestle working in the mortar, the rustle of the paper grocery bag, the whir of the coffee grinder they’d re-purposed for cooking, the sound of Lance’s lightning fast chopping with their ceramic knives, the filling of the copper kettle. Lance wanted everything ready to go when that final ingredient arrived. He laid back and rested his eyes and ignored the pain in his head and his shoulder and the dull throb in a limb he no longer had by picturing the incredible, noble, man puttering around in their seedy apartment. He’d seen it so often that every little sound triggered a memory so clear and concise that even through the haze of pain and medication he could see it vividly. The favored confidante of the Queen of a realm of Fey, covered in tattoos, comfortable in jeans and a tank top, listening to music through earbuds connected to a smartphone. He marveled that all of the strange things that had happened to him had ultimately led to something so mundane and normal at its core. Just him, the man he loved, and a small, quiet, happy life. 

Before long, the buzzer rang and Lance was at the door, speaking in hushed tones and birdsong. The scent of pizza filled the apartment, and Shiro opened his eyes to see Lance dancing to whatever was playing through those earbuds, as he dramatically tossed ingredients into a teapot. He rubbed his hands on the ass of his jeans, making Shiro smile, because… Listen, he was kinda high and his boyfriend had a really cute butt, okay? Then he turned, fishing something out of his pocket and carefully slicing it, crushing it in the mortar, and when he was adding it to the teapot, Shiro could see the orangey glow it was giving off.

“You’re awake,” Lance said softly, “I thought you might have dozed off…”

“No, just listening to you work,” he replied, shifting to sit up properly, and giving himself a moment for his balance and stomach to settle. “Thinking about how lucky I am.”

“Pfft,” Lance waved him off, rolling those spectacular eyes, “spend the day in pain and call yourself lucky. Only you.”

“I’m very lucky,” he replied, “there are so many tiny little things that could have gone differently and any one of them would have meant that I didn’t end up here. With you.”

“My romantic changeling” Lance sighed, smiling sweetly, “you were learning quickly. You’d have been a court favorite within a century. Brave, handsome, charming… a darling in the making.”

“High praise from you,” he answered, unable to resist the grin that Lance’s smile always triggered.”

“Yes,” Lance answered, bouncing on his feet, “it is. Now. The tea should be ready.”

“What’s in it this time?”

“Hmm? Oh.. just assorted herbs and flowers and other bits of plants. Let’s see- white willow bark, cat’s claw, ginger, turmeric, valerian, chamomile, lavender… and.. Uhh… some Pixy’s Purse.”

“Pixy’s Purse?” Shiro echoed, “and cat’s claws?”

Lance laughed and the sound wafted through the room like wind-chimes, “herbs, darling. They are herbs. The names come from the SHAPES. Pixy’s Purse… that’s from home.” He poured the tea as he spoke, his elegant hand lifted, brushing against the delicate hoops and chains that hung from the row of piercings that marched up the point of his ear. One was missing. He’d paid for whatever the heck Pixy’s Purse was with an earring gifted to him by Reine Allura.

“Lance… you didn’t have to…”

“I WANTED to,” Lance countered, setting the cup on the little coffee table in front of Shiro, “and it is just a little slip of jewelry anyway. I have more important gifts from her… and she HATES pointless suffering, so she would agree with what I did. So, no arguing. Drink up.”

The tea smelled… awful. Like curry and flowers and something acrid. He couldn’t help the grimace he made as he brought it close to his nose. “It tastes better than you think it will,” teased Lance.

“Well, it definitely couldn’t taste WORSE,” he countered. “This smells like a gnome’s ass.”

Lance laughed again, “that was… colorful. Drink.”

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes, making a show of taking the first sip. It felt weird in his mouth- almost like egg drop soup- even though the taste was nothing like that. The taste was… sunshine? Was sunshine a flavor? Sunshine... and the warmth of a campfire… and the first snowflake to melt on your nose on a brisk day.

“Good?” Lance asked and he nodded that it was, taking another sip. Somehow it wasn’t too hot, even though it should have been. He’d learned not to question these things too deeply. He glanced over to Lance who gestured for him to keep drinking, so he drained the cup.

Before he even set it down, he could feel his mostly-dormant magic trip over itself and flare. It sizzled through him, starting at his feet and roaring upwards, pushing the pain ahead of it like flotsam on the tide. Whatever was happening wasn’t completely internal, because the rush lifted his bangs from his face like a strong breeze and then dropped them back down. He could… feel his arm again. Not pain. Just the weight of it. The effortless balance. The millions of tiny nerve transmissions that the conscious mind tuned out, but you missed when they weren’t there, infinitesimal signals of warmth and touch and blood flow. It settled something that jangled within him whenever he was struggling with phantom pains. “Wow.”

“I know, right?” Lance said, eyes dancing, “it’s like… magic or something.”

“You ass,” he grumbled.

“There we go,” Lance ruffled his hair, “I can always tell when you are feeling better because you start treating me like normal again. When you are in pain you get all caught up in the draaaaaaammmaaa!” He clutched at his chest and slapped the back of his opposite hand to his forehead, winking at him.

“To be fair- there was a lot of drama.”

“ONE day,” Lance muttered, “months and months and years and years of steamy sexcapades, flirting and fighting and very undramatic, highly carnal, sometimes downright boring, days and nights together… not to mention all the time that we’ve been HERE, washing dishes and taking out the trash and watching reality television… All that outweighs the ONE day that was… okay, even I admit that that ONE day was… what’s the word? Hella dramatic.”

“Hella dramatic,” he echoed.

“We are not what we lost, Takashi,” he sang gently, magic twisting out of his lips as he did so, resonating with the truth of each word. Because he was a pure-blooded Fae, and he’d given up much, but THIS magic was innate and would never leave him. “You and I, we are what we forge together. I chose this life. I chose you. You chose me. We chose each other. There is power in choice. I love you, I love you, I love you more than anything I walked away from. I love this life of ours.”

“I hate feeling like you have to take care of me,” Shiro said softly, tugging Lance into his lap. Lance settled with a playful huff, draping his arms over Shiro’s shoulders.

“We take care of each other. You taught me how to live in this world of yours, didn’t you?”

He thought back to the extreme culture shock that had hit Lance when they first arrived here. He remembered having to explain clocks, and electricity, and vehicles, and countless other little things he’d never even thought about trying to explain, never even questioned. “I did.”

“And when my back and my chest ache because my body still tries to carry and flutter wings I don’t have anymore, you run me a hot bath and pour water over my shoulders, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“See? We are the same. That’s why I love being here with you. Because you are just you and I am just me, and we love each other and take care of each other.”

“I love you,” Shiro whispered, kissing him sweetly, “with your weirdly named herbs and the CONSTANT music.”

“I love you, too,” he answered back, “and human music is the best thing this world has to offer that isn’t you!”

“Mmm… I guess watching you dance is kinda okay.”

Lance laughed, smacking his shoulder affectionately, “and I guess using up my weirdly named herbs to make you feel better is… not terrible.”

Shiro grinned.

It was a weird life. 

Very weird. 

But it was a good one.


End file.
